Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing mandatory food waste reporting in the context of helping the UK to meet its target to halve food waste by 2030.

This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only.

The Government is fully committed to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 target, which seeks to halve global food waste at consumer and retail levels by 2030. We support the Courtauld Commitment 2030 which works for a more sustainable supply chain tackling food waste, reducing GHG emissions and water use. The new phase of commitments, Courtauld 2030, includes an updated target of a 50% per capita reduction in food waste by 2030 against the UK’s 2007 baseline.

The Government consulted on options to improve reporting of food waste volumes by large businesses in England. As set out in our published response to the consultation, the Government has decided to enhance the voluntary approach to food waste reporting. Around a third of large food businesses already provide evidence to WRAP on their food waste and we propose to increase this number.

A regulatory approach has greater total costs to businesses and the public sector than the voluntary approach and is not considered suitable at this time, when any additional costs may be passed on to consumers.